


Uninvited House Guests

by RueRambunctious



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blasphemy, British Military, British Slang, Dominance, Home Invasion, Homelessness, M/M, Military Background, New house, References to Drugs, Slow Burn, Squatting, Strangers to Lovers, Swearing, Top Sebastian, Trans Character, Unrequited Hate, Violence, dishonourable discharge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-04-14 06:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14129847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RueRambunctious/pseuds/RueRambunctious
Summary: Sebastian returns home to Britain with a dishonourable discharge. His brother Severin accompanies him to help Seb settle in a rundown old house.The house is not unoccupied, and its current 'owners' are not best amused.





	1. A Project

The UK is cold. It is the first thing Sebastian thinks after being sent home in disgrace from the middle east, even after a week in Cyprus trying to acclimatise to less brutal weather.

The second thing Sebastian notices is that even under his tan civilians easily notice his facial scars, but it doesn't stop them looking. Some people gawk, and some look like they wouldn't be adverse to his stubble burning their skin. He pays all of them little mind once he assesses each of them to be no real threat.

The third thing Sebastian notices is that he is surprisingly glad to have his brother Severin at his side. Seb claps Sev's shoulder as Severin grabs their bags from the baggage carousel and Sev notices Sebastian's expression. Severin throws an arm quickly around his brother then steps back and wrestles their gear through the herd of civvies towards the airport exit.

“Mum's going to tell you that you could have afforded a better house,” Severin says when their Uber drops them off outside Sebastian's new home. It is the first time either man has seen the building in the flesh and as the photographs had foretold the poor place has seen better days.

Sebastian pays and rates the driver whilst staring at the worn cladding of the building's face. “I'd go mad in days staring at the painted walls of some horrible new build. I need this sorry mess to keep me busy.”

“And me busy, apparently,” Severin says with a roll of his eyes. “Have you got your keys?”

“I'll keep you well fed in pizza,” Sebastian says as he pockets his phone and lifts a bag. “I'd hardly bring you all this way and not have the keys.”

“Only halfway around the world,” Sev says blithely. “Normal people would _pick up_ keys from someone.”

Sebastian pulls the small ring of keys from his pocket and approaches the doorway. “Well I got sent them. What does it matter?”

“Nothing, just everything about this sale has been weird,” Severin says. “I hope everything's been connected.”

Sebastian finds the storm doors do not need unlocked and gazes suspiciously at the small porch. It isn't built for two people of their size carrying baggage. Seb moves forwards and reaches the front door. He is relieved to find it locked and turns the key firmly. The door hasn't been used in a while.

“Move your arse, will you?” Sev comments.

“Sorry,” Sebastian mutters, glancing around inside before actually stepping far enough in that Severin can join him within the threshold. Sebastian reaches for the nearby row of light switches and flicks one at random.

A light flickers slowly into life and the men smile in pleasure at the proof of working electrics. Sebastian tries each of the other switches, determining which work what lights, and notes that the porch light will need to be replaced. Satisfied, Seb switches off the outdoor lights and wanders down the hallway until he reaches the first room.

Light streams in from the large bay window and Sebastian is pleased to see that after paying someone to remove the metal covers from all the windows the glass of this one is intact. He dumps down his bag on the wooden flooring and treads over to check the seals for drafts or damp.

Severin eyes the lack of furniture. “Just as well I brought my fucking sleeping bag.”

Seb rolls his eyes. “A few beers tonight and you won't notice.”

Severin chuckles and a genuine smile graces his handsome face. Having completed tours in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait in recent years he is pleased with the prospect of being home in a country without alcohol prohibition.

“Thought that would cheer you up,” smirks Sebastian.

Sev nods. “It's been a long day. Shall we have a poke around and then nip out to scout the nearest shops?”

“It's been a long few months,” Sebastian mutters. “I'm going to have you polishing the ceiling with a bumper once I find a way for you to reach it.”

Severin stares at his brother for a moment. “I appreciate it, you know.”

“Oh shut up and don't be soft,” Sebastian scoffs. “Bloody boring job anyway.”

“For someone who got himself mauled by a tiger at the age lads are normally getting fitted out for Eton,” Sev says.

“Fucking rather lose my other nipple to septic than have much more pencil pushing. Army's shit once you're not running about,” Sebastian mutters.

“The legion will probably take you in a couple of years if you get bored,” Severin says. He winks. “So long as you don't get fat.”

“Piss off,” Seb retorts lightly. He pushes away from the windowsill and wanders through the house. Severin puts down his own baggage and follows.

“Least the floorboards are intact,” Sev comments.

“Damn sight better than some of the places we've been told to sleep,” Sebastian agrees. He explores the spacious house with something that may grow to be contentment as he mentally lists what issues will need fixed. He is relieved to have a project.

The house is in poor repair and it looks as if kids have broken in to use a few of the rooms at some point but there's nothing that overly concerns the brothers. The electricity works and the water not only comes on but runs clear.

There's an intriguing few doors which are locked and don't have locks which match any of the keys on Sebastian's ring, but that is no real worry. Tomorrow the pair will look for keys and if no such keys materialise Severin and Sebastian are more than strong enough to break down some doors.

“Bags the room across from yours,” Sev announces.

His brother looks at him. “You want your own room in my place? You don't live here!”

“You've got the space and I'm going to be bursting my arse helping you fix up this place so I get my own room,” Severin replies.

“If you bring a bird back here before I do, I swear to God...”

Severin snorts at Sebastian. “When was the last time you shagged a _bird_ , Seb?”

Sebastian grimaces good-naturedly. “I get more birds than you.”

“Pity sex, that's all it is,” Sev teases. “Those _bloody_ scars.”

Sebastian points to his brow, where Sev has a small scar of his own. “That's your problem, bruv: _not big enough_.”

“Go suck a dick,” Severin retorts, laughing as he shoves his brother.

“Fuck off, some of us are tired after a long tour getting sand stuck to sunscreen. I want _my_ dick sucked,” Sebastian says.

Severin grins. “Where's the nearest bar?”

“Are you serious? Aren't you tired?” Seb responds.

“If I'm lucky maybe I'll find a comfortable bed for the night,” Severin jokes.

Sebastian laughs. “You may have a point. Alright, we'll go for a few, but _shopping first. _God knows we're going to need Resolve tomorrow.”__

__“Yeah, alright,” Sev agrees. “And let's get chips. Fucking British _chippy_ chips. And _anything_ battered.”_ _

__“Sold,” Sebastian agrees._ _

__He has the uncomfortable feeling when they return home late (early) that night that their belongings aren't where he remembered them being, but he dismisses the thought and spends the early hours throwing up wretchedly in the bathroom he has yet to rip out much less clean._ _

__If his bloody house is haunted he has bigger worries._ _


	2. Suitcases

Sebastian wakes on floorboards which do not smell familiar and notes with regret that he feels _wretched_. His skin is clammy but lacks the perpetually greasy feeling of daily sunscreen application.

The absence stirs Seb's memories. No sand. Last night he was drinking openly amongst women with uncovered hair and blokes the colour of animal teeth. The young lad behind the bar was paler still, white as a bloody Kleenex, and generously flecked with freckles the rusty hue of dried blood staining washed cotton. Ginger was making money hand over fist that night, as the booze he was selling was far cheaper than what Seb and Sev have been used to paying abroad for illicit imported liquor. Some of the lads in uniform were happy to risk the homemade variations offered by the locals over there, but it was not unheard of for that rocket fuel to literally make a man blind, so the Moran brothers were rarely interested.

They had certainly been interested in the drink flowing freely last night, Sebastian acknowledges ruefully. His stomach bubbles unhappily and he feels like he's taken a few booted kicks to the inside of his skull.

He's getting too bloody old for this. Sebastian reluctantly pushes his fragile bulk to a marginally less prone position and clamps his bloodshot eyes closed. The room spins a little upon opening them again, but Seb is sober enough to note the grime on his palms and the handprints he has left on the dusty floorboards by pulling himself up. That floor is getting scrubbed, but not until he's feeling less like a poorly knotted condom filled with pavement pizza.

Sebastian notes the unzipped sleeping bag tangled around his legs and kicks it away with a slow care. He is terribly mindful of his sore head and roiling stomach.

Seb crawls for a few steps before stumbling to his feet. He clutches the doorframe of his near empty bedroom and surveys the en suite he spent most of the small hours of the morning in. Thankfully he has managed not to make much mess, although the air still smells unappetisingly of sick and alcohol. The towels are nested on the floor near the toilet where Sebastian had slept fitfully before feeling well enough to lumber back to his sleeping bag.

A shower. Sebastian uses the toilet then carefully climbs into the not terribly antiquated shower. The controls are simple enough to understand and thankfully the water is feeling far more capable of this task than Seb himself is. He slumps to his knees on the porcelain base uncaring of its less than pristine state and allows the hot stream of water to pour over his thumping head.

Sebastian slowly starts to feel more human. He washes sloppily and drags himself back up to his feet to switch off the spray. Water drips from the showerhead and Seb notes the telltale pink of limescale, turning to greyish black in places. The new bathroom won't be fitted for a few days so he had best scrub this grimy place. He will. But not until he feels better.

Sebastian towels dry with a bit more command over his body than before and manages not to lose his balance. His mouth feels disgusting still but one look at the crystallised filth around the mouth of the cold tap persuades him to further postpone brushing his teeth.

Sebastian pulls on yesterday's socks to protect his (still somewhat damp) feet from the dirt of his bare bedroom floorboards. He leaves the towels on the wet bathroom tiles and pads through to where his suitcase is sitting. It isn't in the position he remembers, and he's sure he had unpacked a bit more than this, but after how much he drank last night it's no wonder his memory is playing up.

Sebastian retrieves a comfortable, old outfit and dresses, peeling off the now damp socks. His boots are God knows where, but Seb does not much fancy ruining his fresh socks on the dubious floors of his house. He finds trainers in his suitcase and shoves them on before shuffling through to check on his brother.

Sev's room is empty. Sebastian finds Severin in the nearby family bathroom slumped against his knees.

“Mornin',” Seb grins.

Sev gives him a mildly disgusted look. “Wish you'd come killed me a few hours ago. When does your stuff get delivered, like your frying pan specifically?”

Sebastian leans on the doorframe and gives a rueful smile. “I was too busy dying myself. No idea, but downstairs we've got some glasses, water, and Resolve. You up for joining me or will I bring it up?”

“I'll come with you, sick of the sight of your lav,” Severin snorts. “Besides, you might not manage to get back up those stairs.”

“Fuck knows how we managed to get up them last night,” Seb scoffs. “Pair of us were _trollied_.”

“Good thing your carpets aren't down yet 'cause I'm sure you dropped like half your kebab,” Sev responds. He gets shakily to his feet, leaning heavily on the sink.

Sebastian sighs, the truth of this making itself known in his memory. “Great,” he mutters. He eyes his brother. “Think you can manage?”

Severin is suffering enough not to quip back but grunts an affirmative and slowly moves towards Seb. “I'll be fine once I've got something in my gut,” Sev mumbles.

“That's the spirit,” says Sebastian.

They make it downstairs, force down a few pints of water and some remedial powder that tastes vile but swiftly makes them feel less deathly.

“Thank fuck we're not working today,” Severin comments.

“Yeah, but we can't exactly veg out in front of the TV today either,” Seb responds wryly.

“Oh, I don't care,” his brother says. “Another nap then we can clean this place up a bit.”

Sebastian chuckles. “I don't think either of us are in any fit state to do much renovation today, bruv.”

“Fuck no, but we can do a bit of sweeping and dusting,” Sev says. “Might even manage some _scrubbing_ once my belly's fully settled.”

Sebastian nods and that's what they do. Despite the size of the rooms they make good headway with cleaning (including the bathroom taps, allowing Seb to brush his teeth at last) and the brothers work up an appetite. Ignoring the groceries they bought the day before, the boys treat their remaining hangovers with greasy fast food and afterwards feel brave enough to go shopping for proper DIY supplies. The brothers have some tools and other useful items in storage but they are not quite recovered enough for taking accurate measurements and they know it. They pick out paints and flooring instead, and almost get asked to leave when Sev lamps Seb for adding glow in the dark stars for Severin's bedroom to their shopping trolley.

The stars make it home with them surprisingly unscathed but the front door jams oddly upon their return. The brothers carry their items inside and exchange glances with each other because things do not seem quite as they left them.

Closing the front door, the Morans scout the house but there is no sign of trespass. “Must still be sobering up,” Severin comments half to himself.

Sebastian hums a vague agreement and sets about placing the paint tins in the appropriate rooms to tackle tomorrow. Sev helps and they set about doing a few odd jobs that don't require much effort, fixing some skirting boards and the like.

Sebastian sets a box of screws by the front door for later. He's going to take it off its hinges and attach it with deeper screws, and will have a look at how it's hanging when he does so. He might sand it if it still sticks. Still, it's certainly more secure than a modern UPVC door that can be lifted off its frame with a quick, firm thrust of a screwdriver.

Sebastian eyes one of the locked, keyless doors. Kicking it down can certainly wait until he feels less ropey. He might have a hunt for the keys later.

In the meantime Sebastian decides to tidy his meagre belongings from his room. Based on the measurements in his emails he has ordered some underlay and carpet to be delivered. Sev had rolled his eyes at the prospect of helping to carry it upstairs, but Seb is a whizz with a knife and a carpet cutter is no exception. He'll have the generously sized bedrooms fitted inside of an hour.

Sebastian pauses as his bedroom door comes into frame. His suitcase is sitting zipped in the hallway. He approaches dubiously and looks around.

This was certainly not as he left it.

Sev's suitcase is packed as well. Sebastian trots downstairs and calls for his brother.

Severin looks confused by Seb's tense tone and steps out from where he has been preparing their dinner in the now clean kitchen. “You okay, bro?”

“Did you touch our stuff?” Sebastian asks.

“What stuff?”

“Did you pack our suitcases?” Seb presses.

Sev raises a puzzled brow convincingly. “No? Why would I?”


	3. Ectoplasm

Sebastian and Severin are brothers. They grew up spares for the heir of Sir Augustus Moran (their elder brother Rawdon) and were shipped off to Eton at thirteen; they then studied separate degrees at Oxford, and like every legitimate Moran son, they soon after became commissioned officers in the British army.

The brothers are for the most part alike. Both Seb and Sev were born with blond hair which has not faded to a nondescript neutral tone in the manner of most male Brits their age, but has instead been bleached under the blazing heat of the sun during their time in the middle east. Likewise their complexions are bronzed (and in some places reddened, although they remain a starkly contrasting pale peach in certain private areas). The Moran brothers have always been tall for their age and stockily built, and both have grown since adolescence into particularly strong, muscular men. Their workout regimes are not identical and as such neither is their stature, but the men are a similar enough pair that they are used to being mistaken for each other.

Sebastian and Severin have never minded looking like each other. Remarks upon their similarity to each other are far more welcome than any comments that they bear resemblance to their father (or bloody perfect Rawdon).

In recent years it has become much easier to tell Seb from his brother by virtue of still-bright scar tissue around his eye and across his nose, but this is often hidden by streaks of camo paint, the rim of sunglasses, or the shadow of a helmet. It has only recently occurred to Sebastian that his facial scars will be a lot more apparent now he is living amongst civilians. Sev has facial scars too, around his eyebrow and lip and chin, but they are all small things and are faded to white by now.

The biggest differences in appearance between the Moran brothers are visible when they are in a state of undress. Both men have inked skin, but can be instantly differentiated by their tattoos. Severin and Sebastian both bear a smattering of smallish black and white inkings, but Seb's stomach is adorned by a large tiger design which both hides and cleverly incorporates his most significant area of scar tissue. In contrast Sev's chest is almost bare, but his limbs and hips are patterned with ink, ending abruptly at his elbows and then again at his wrist bones as per army regulations. Since the new slackening of rules Severin has gotten his left hand tattooed also but thus far has kept his saluting hand respectfully clean. Had it been Severin who had taken the dishonourable discharge he would probably be on his way to get an excessive (and perhaps obscene) neck tattoo by now, but Sebastian is not quite as enthusiastic about decorating his body.

For the most part Seb and Sev work well as a team. Having spent a great deal of their youth abroad whilst their influential father worked and under strict (but not always followed) instructions to stay put within their grounds, the brothers were often each other's only companion in the early years. There were some exemptions, most noticeably Christabel, their sibling closest in age and familiarity, as well as children of the everchanging staff. Still, Chris was sent off to boarding school when the boys were seven, and they never stayed anywhere long enough to form a friendship outside of themselves that had depth or permanence, so the brothers have long been used to only relying on each other. 

This is not to say they cannot work independently: each was in command of their own six in Scouts (many, many moons ago) and teachers learned within a term to keep Seb and Sev in separate classes for the sake of discipline. By the time the pair reached university they were used to following their own interests, but even had it not been a family tradition for all Moran men (and the later generations of Moran women) to attend Oxford, Sebastian and Severin would have been hesitant to study far from each other. After graduation they completed officer training together and being posted separately was the longest the brothers had ever been apart. It took some time for each of them to be accustomed to the change and they kept in regular contact (often choosing to communicate with each other over short term partners).

Sebastian and Severin fall back into easy camaraderie with each other after each separation and this situation is no different. The brothers are happy to be in each other's company and tackle the derelict house with an enthusiasm buoyed by being together.

Being alike and openly fond of each other, one would expect the Moran brothers sharing living quarters in this way to be predictable and without hiccup. They know each other better than any lover has thus far managed to and each cares enough about the other to accommodate their brother's quirks. The biggest risk of tension either brother could anticipate is the significant sacrifice Sebastian has made for Severin, but that is not the source of strain which fogs the otherwise sunny mood of the next few days.

Things keep going missing or being moved. Tools in particular are misplaced every time the brothers leave a room for long enough to eat. It is impossible to blame each other when the disturbances tend to be noticed when both brothers reenter a room that they left together.

And yet they are the only ones in the house. Or at least, they cannot find any intruder. The Moran brothers do however hear different creaks in the house that they fancy may not simply be the old building settling.

Sebastian and Severin do their best to ignore what they have taken to calling their pet poltergeist and get on with tackling more practical issues. The house needs fixing, cleaning, and painting before the majority of furniture can be delivered and the Moran brothers are not ones to procrastinate during a project.

They also do not tend to make mistakes. Severin in particular has a sound head for figures and he has checked and rechecked the measurements he and his brother have taken. They're wrong somehow. Except they're not. The numbers they took down and based purchases on _are_ correct, the tape measure and the fancy measuring gadget both agree on this, and yet nothing fits. Seb takes the numbers and frowns at the paper. The numbers look erased then rewritten, but unless their pet poltergeist is indeed real they may have to start considering whether they are going barmy.

“All that hard living must be making us senile,” says Sev, unconsciously echoing his brother's thoughts.

Sebastian sighs and they very carefully remeasure everything before making an attempt to salvage their poorly fitting problems. 

The next day they check and recheck the paint they have purchased and its estimated coverage. There is somehow less than they require even though both brothers are _certain_ they bought spare. Seb makes a start painting anyway and Sev makes a brief trip to get more paint cans.

Sebastian breaks for lunch when his brother returns and they take a much needed hour to refuel. When they return to the room Seb was painting there are more tins than he remembers.

He frowns and looks questioningly at his sibling. “Tell me the fumes are going to my head?”

Sev takes out the calculations he had taken with him to the shop and counts up the paint present. He pulls out the tins from the bag he carried upstairs before lunch. His receipt is now missing, and there is far too much paint. Without the new paint there is already enough to satisfactorily cover the room.

Sebastian can read the situation with his brother needing to say a word. He curses then stubbornly takes the cling film off of the damp roller to continue painting.

“Don't suppose you've broken any mirrors lately?” Sev asks as he opens a tin to help.

Sebastian flicks a small glob of paint at his brother. “I swear if you're choosing now to make some crack about my mug-”

Sev laughs but keeps his quips less teasing than usual. Sebastian does not like not knowing what is going on and his frustration is almost as thick in the air as the paint fumes. Seb notices his brother's mellow mood and appreciates it. He lets Severin pick the takeaway that night.

The windows of the painted room have been left open to clear the fumes but the brothers close them against possible trespassers before going to bed.

The room is vandalised when they get up in the morning. Sebastian stands at the doorway in shock at the vivid proof that all the odd little circumstances beforehand may not have been flukes. Gritting his teeth, he checks the windows and discovered that they are still as locked as they were the night before.

Severin finds it odd that whoever has thrown paint about during the night has not left footprints leading out of the room, wet or otherwise. All the same, he and Seb scout the house for intruders. 

They find none, and find no obvious sign of entry either. The doors and windows are secure. No one would practically use the fireplace (even St Nick, because the Moran brothers have always been morally dubious lads) and there are no sooty footprints or broken cobwebs to suggest entry has been gained thus. All Seb sees in the chimney space is a deserted nest.

“If it's local kids breaking in they must be friends with Caspar,” Sev mutters as their search fizzles out.

Sebastian stands stock still before the keyless door. He indicates a smear of paint. “That ectoplasm then, is it?”


	4. Shadow Spitfire

Sebastian and Severin wake in the morning with the intention of tackling the locked doors, starting with the one damningly marked with paint. However, try as the powerful brothers might, they cannot make the doors shift. The blasted things prove to be far stronger than the brothers had first assessed, and are reinforced with what feels like thick metal.

Sebastian kicks the door lightly and examines where he is going to try to force the hinges. Severin catches the discharged soldier's arm as they hear quiet scuffling behind the locked door.

“Bloody kids,” Seb mutters. “If I catch them I'll wring their dad's neck.”

“Least we know it's not huge rats,” Sev responds softly, his lips curling. He pushes away from the wall. “I'll see if I can go round the house and catch where they're getting in.”

Sebastian nods and gives the heavy door another mildly petulant kick.

Sev returns later empty-handed. “I think I can see movement, but the way in's blocked. Come give me a boost?”

His brother deserts the paint-smeared door. “You think they're getting in somewhere too high for you to manage?”

“No, I think they're getting in through a gap neither of us could fit through, but I think we can reach the same place if I can get high up enough. It looks like the servants' stairs were mostly locked up at some point and someone's busted in and reinforced places.”

“Like a panic room?” Sebastian muses. He kneels and threads his large hands beneath a boarded window of a room they cannot yet access. “If we've got squatters in a panic room I am going to _skin_ the estate agent.”

Severin chuckles and uses his brother to reach a ledge on the old building before pulling himself up against a window opening. Peering in, the blond comments, “I don't see anyone.”

“Can you get in past that grill?” Seb asks.

“Maybe,” Sev says. “My shoulders are a bit-” He forces the material hard, but with the poor purchase his boots have on the eroded stonework Severin has a limited ability to force the loose sheeting aside with his bulk.

He peers down at his brother. “You want to try, bro?”

“Yeah why not, give the little bastards a good scare,” Sebastian responds. He braces to give his brother a way back down, stones from the ledge digging into his shoulder from Severin's boot sole, then stands as Sev hops onto the ground. 

The moment Severin is in position Sebastian clambers up onto the ledge and examines the gap. Severin has thicker arms but Seb has a broader chest, so the difference in the brothers' similar builds is negligible. “I'm going to need a crowbar to get this out of our way,” Sebastian calls down, his thick fingers running down the edge of the sheeting speculatively.

Sev helps Seb down and indicates a crack in the brickwork that neither of them has hopes of getting more than a thigh through. “I reckon our little house guests can't be much thicker than a crowbar anyway.”

The brothers saunter back around to the front of the house and let themselves in. Sebastian stands momentarily still beyond the storm doors, blocking Severin.

“Those little _cunts_ ,” Seb snarls.

Sev tries to look around his brother's shoulder and groans as he sees the mess Sebastian has approached. Seb runs back to the nearest locked door as Severin steps over the belongings stolen from their suitcases and strewn about the house.

“Remember they're just kids!” Severin cautions.

“If their old man has anything to say about what I'm going to do to the little brats he can wait until the hospital have reset his jaw!” Sebastian snaps. The door is locked again and he shoulders it angrily, to little effect.

“We could just have a poltergeist,” Sev says calmly, trying to diffuse his brother's temper.

“We could have a few ghosts after I _catch the little bastards and gut them_ ,” Seb snarls towards the door, but he concedes his brother's effort and steps away.

“If they've any sense they'll go home whilst we clear up,” Severin says.

Sebastian growls like a displeased guard dog but sulkily follows his brother back to the trashed hallway. Sev kneels and starts to pick up items of clothing. Seb's eyes bulge as he notes some of their clothing has been deliberately torn, but he holds the remains of his temper and joins Severin in tidying his home.

They order takeaway later and Severin sends Seb out for some beers. Ordinarily Sev would go himself, but both Moran brothers know Severin is loathe to leave Sebastian alone in the house lest he run into their little vandals.

Sebastian is a lot less grumpy by the time he climbs the stairs for bed. He falls asleep quickly, but in the midst of the dark night he is woken by a disturbance he cannot immediately place. He cannot hear anything untoward, but his instincts insist something is amiss. Sebastian pretends to still be asleep and observes what he can vaguely see and crisply hear of his surroundings.

A silhouette as slight as Peter Pan's shadow is far closer to Sebastian than he expects, and he has mere nanoseconds to react before it lunges in to suffocate him.

Sebastian grabs the attacker and finds them surprisingly light. His attempt to spin the stranger out of their intended path throws them across the floor. They land with a loud, unpleasant thud, their arms not doing a sufficient job of breaking their fall.

Sebastian kicks off his sleeping bag and is on the interloper in moments. He pins the stranger to the floor and realises they may well be slight enough to fit through the crack Severin indicated earlier.

He's a not a kid though, this skinny lad. And… he's rather pretty beneath that scowl. Dark, stormy eyes and fuckable lips Sebastian can just about make out in the gloom.

The uninvited house guest struggles angrily, trying to fake past his tangible fear. Sebastian can smell it and understands: he is a great deal bigger, stronger, and more obviously intimidating than this scrawny, scrappy, little brat.

Sebastian listens to their surroundings and assesses that he cannot hear any other visitors. “SEVERIN!” Seb yells.

Luckily, the whiplike young man Sebastian has pinned down against the noticeably new-smelling bedroom carpet appears to be acting alone. Severin rouses at his brother's call and enters carefully with a gun _not_ locked up in his barracks.

Sev eyes the slight male beneath his brother as well as their surroundings. Severin has never had much issue with seeing in the dark. “Kids swarming to your bedroom now, bruv?”

Sebastian chuckles mirthlessly. The dark-eyed stranger in his grasp glares hotly back, evidently trying to ignore the pain Seb knows he must feel from so audibly smashing his upper vertebrae off of the floor.

“Little bastard's not a teenager,” Seb comments. He gives the interloper's face a quick slap. “Not quite started shaving yet though.”

“Fuck you,” the dark-eyed stranger snaps. His accent jars with their surroundings and Seb feels a thrill he quickly ignores. The brat twists and tries to throw Sebastian off of his slight self, but the blond is nearly three times the smaller man's weight and holding him in a way that gives no purchase to shrimp away.

“Try not to kill him,” Severin says. “I'll go see if he has any friends.”

Sebastian's attacker stiffens for an instant, then wriggles fruitlessly as though trying to distract from his telling reaction.

“I was gonna give your Da a good hiding, you little prick,” Seb tells him, “but I think you're old enough that you can take it yourself.”

“You can take yourself off of me, is what you can do,” the skinny stranger demands.

Sebastian laughs grimly. “Cocky _and_ stupid, are you? Let me tell you, fucker, you ain't in _any_ position to tell _me_ what to do.”

Dark eyes narrow beneath him. “Crow all you like, oaf, I'll be wearing your skin before long.”

Seb's pale eyes widen for a moment then his shoulders shake with laughter. “Aye alright, killer. You're right feisty for being as broad as a papercut and twice as nippy.”

The stranger's lips purse in displeasure and they are close enough that even in the poor lighting Sebastian can make out the way the brat's throat ticks as he swallows irately. Peter Pan's shadow bucks his narrow hips smartly and throws out a sharp elbow, but Sebastian merely leans forward and pins his uninvited guest closer.

The shadow boy does not smell of anything in particular, but their heightened proximity changes the way Seb breathes. It has been a while since the blond has had anyone writhe beneath him, and Sebastian has always liked the little spitfires.

His uninvited guest's thrashing unconsciously eases a little in response. He gives Seb a confused look, then one of fear.

“I said, ' _Get off of me_ ,'” the stranger snarls.

Sebastian squeezes narrow wrists in his large hand. “Hey, I got nearly two hundred pounds on you, and I've got your deserving arse pinned to the floor. You don't give the orders.”

“You think you can have arms this thick and have brains too?” the dark-eyed young man scoffs. “Get. Off. Me.”

That accent is going to be the death of one or the other of them. Seb tries to tell himself it's a _hiding_ he is set to give this runt, but the way the little bastard _wiggles_ unrepentantly is giving Sebastian's loins other ideas.

Sebastian stares down wordlessly at the stranger and swallows.

“Nothing to say? Spent all your brain cells already, have you?” the slight young man sneers.

There is no telltale tightening of the runt's trousers against Sebastian, but the bigger man notes the way his foiled attacker's nostrils flare and lips quiver. Dark eyes fully blown mean little in this poor lighting, but Seb fancies this stranger is feeling a similar compulsion beyond reason.

Sebastian can see a glimmer of light on the brat's wet teeth as his captive licks his captivating lips and breathes far slower than the pulse of blood to Seb's groin.

Neither man pays much attention to the creak of Severin's tread on the stairs. The pair flinch a fraction away from each other as Sev switches on Sebastian's bedroom light.


	5. Am I Interrupting?

Severin stares down at his brother and the skinny stranger beneath Seb. When Sev had left Sebastian had still been angry; the man had been so spitting mad at first that Sev had waited to leave lest Sebastian did the small intruder real, significant damage.

Sebastian's shoulders now seem taunt with a different energy as he holds his hulking muscles over the tiny interloper. Seb's prey too seems different in mood: his frantic writhing has all but stilled and Sev gets the peculiar feeling this has nothing to do with the young guy accepting that Sebastian is around three times his meagre weight.

Figures. Sebastian's always been quick to fluctuate between rage and lust. The amount of time it's been since Sev's brother has taken anyone home has also probably deserves some blame for the way Seb is currently breathing.

“Am I interrupting?” Severin asks.

Sebastian feels regret that little has happened to interrupt, then tells himself he needs to take himself firmly in hand in the shower later if he is so easily riled. The pressure of their intruder's sharp hipbones is doing nothing to stem the bloodflow to parts of Sebastian that could probably snap the skinny stranger beneath him in two.

Seb shakes his head. “Our new friend was just telling me what big brains and biceps I have.”

Severin glances at the dark ceiling. “Sure. Do you need to borrow a condom, or shall I tell you about his friends?”

As close as Sebastian is to the slight male beneath him, he cannot help notice the odd response his captive gives. Disgust or something like it curls the stranger's lips at Severin's offer of a condom, only to give way to an expression of fright and concern as Sev interestingly mentions companions. At this point the little intruder rocks his hips in a slow, meaningful manner and pushes just enough thunder from his expression to lower his eyelids seductively.

Sebastian knows when he's being played, however pretty he finds this little brat. Seb meets guarded, dark eyes and growls, “Behave.”

The stranger's face breaks into a jagged but not unpractised pout. “Or what?” he asks in a heady, lilting accent that Sebastian wants to taste and feel wrapped around his skin.

Sebastian steels himself. “Or it won't just be that neck of yours that hurts.” He sits up a little, giving the Irish shadow breathing space but no room to escape. Seb regards his brother. “What friends?”

Severin raises his full brows. “Looks like we did more damage to one of the doors than I thought. It's bent and only partly locked. I think the two of us can force it.”

Sebastian can all but smell the rising fear coming off of his little uninvited guest in thick waves in response to that comment. Seb can't blame the little fucker: he and Sev are more than a match for any group of scruffy, little squatters playing in a panic room.

Still, it's oddly intimate to be able to hear the young Irishman's pounding heartbeat on the floor of the dark bedroom. Sebastian shifts his weight yet again and tugs the stranger's dark hair, earning an intriguing grunt from the little bloke.

“Let's go get your pals and we'll snap all your elbows in the one go, shall we?” Sebastian says. With a cruel win he says, “No need for you to go first.”

Severin shifts away from the doorframe attentively.

“No!” their skinny captive blurts. Sebastian is ready enough that when the little stranger dives upwards, far closer, that Seb is able to shift the spread of weight on his heavy thighs and keep his shadow pinned.

Except the young man isn't trying to escape now. He tries to wrap his forearms around Sebastian's head in a way that isn't threatening. Thin arms slide down to circle Seb's thick neck and the stranger tilts his chin up desperately towards Sebastian.

The blond stiffens and in the time it takes for Severin to take half a protective step towards them Sebastian realises their uninvited guest isn't trying to harm him; the Irish brat is going in for a _kiss_. Seb lets it happen and feels a shock as smooth lips cast sparks upon skin that hasn't been thus touched in far too long. The nerves tingle as they reawaken and Sebastian responds with a growl somewhere deep in his throat as he pushes the stranger backwards onto that sore spine.

Sebastian peels himself off of the brat's face reluctantly and stares down with blazing eyes. “A kiss ain't going to stop me from going after your mates,” Seb says a little breathlessly.

The young stranger leans in cloyingly nonetheless, widening his eyes innocently although the expression within them is disdainful and detached. “I'll make it worth your while,” he drawls insistently.

Sebastian pulls the brat's hair again and enjoys the resulting hiss and narrowed eyes. “You and your _dickhead_ mates have really pissed me and my brother off. It's not a _kiss_ I want to give you.”

Thin hips rise up against Sebastian's body again. “Then what do you want?” the stranger murmurs. His voice is seductive and almost businesslike, but its coldness is streaked with fear. This interloper is a protective little thing it seems.

“What I _want_ is to give you a good doing for your bloody pranks and fuckery,” Sebastian responds, “ _and_ your buddies.”

“What if I let you hurt me?” the Irish voice asks quickly. “Don't go after anyone else; take it all out on me.”

Sebastian sits back just a fraction and raises his brows at his brother to acknowledge the loyalty shown. Sev nods slowly, crossing his arms over loosely, and leans back against the doorframe.

“What are you suggesting, shorty?” Sebastian asks.

The stranger swallows and swiftly answers, “Hurt me. Fuck me. Take turns using me. Just-”

Seb tugs the brat's hair again. “You know there's nothing stopping us from doing all that to you anyway and _then_ bursting down that door?”

The shadow boy's expression turns bitter. He knows that. “Please,” he spits.

Sebastian smirks at him and takes hold of a bony wrist. He yanks the young man up to his feet alongside himself and pulls the stranger tauntingly close. “I'd _love_ to strip you here and now, you fucker, and bone you through the floor until you were splinters.” Sebastian grins wider still in threat. “But I'd rather punch each of your mates in the face first.”

“No!” the captive blurts. He tries to twist from Sebastian's grasp but despite his evident speed the slighter man cannot escape without shattering the thin arm bone in Seb's vicelike grasp.

“Hey, if you want a kiss better afterwards you can sit on my lap and ask me nicely,” Sebastian mocks. His voice is cold but flirtatious.

The skinny intruder curses at him. There is an angry helplessness that lights the young man's eyes, but there is also something in the expression that very much interests Seb.

The distraught stranger is _aroused_.

Sebastian chuckles unsympathetically and pulls the brat to his tiptoes for a dominating kiss that the stranger does not reject. Seb leaves him panting, face sore and swollen from stubble burn afterwards.

“Tell you what, kid,” Sebastian teases, “once we've been introduced to your mates, if you strip off and ask me to beat your arse for what you've done, I'll be kind to you and won't leave any marks on your face. Delicate thing like you, whether I hit you in the cheek, jaw or nose something would be bound to shatter.”

The young Irishman purses his lips in frustration. “I don't care what you do to my face.”

“Really,” Sebastian drawls. He swoops down and captures the small man's bottom lip between his teeth, pulling possessively at it. The shadow boy groans and tries to wrap his arms back around Seb's neck as best he can with one wrist still clenched in the big blond's bruising grip.

“Somebody's a little fucked up,” Sebastian purrs softly as he breaks away.

“Bite me,” the Irish brat snaps, then yelps as Seb yanks him back in to obey firmly. 

Sebastian soothes the now throbbing skin with his tongue. “Silly little bastard. Haven't you heard to be careful what you ask for? You _certainly_ haven't heard that it's advisable to respect your elders. But don't you worry, pet. I'll enjoy teaching you that.”

The little intruder shivers. His expression seems torn between fiery rejection, self-preservation, and an ashamed desire to succumb to what Sebastian thrillingly interprets to be a whole host of crooked daddy issues.

Behind them, Severin is rolling his eyes. “If you'd rather just shag the little prick I can go back to bed. But gag him because I want to get some sleep.”

Sebastian grins and drags a reluctant intruder towards the hallway. “Don't you want to find a toy of your own, Sev?”


	6. Feral and Fearful

In the end it barely takes the strength of both Moran brothers to force open the broken panic door. Sebastian keeps their little captive pinned to his chest with one strong arm and kicks hard whilst Severin throws most of his own body weight behind the shoulder barge he uses that breaks what remained of the door's lock.

Seb spares a moment to eye the wet circles his uninvited house guest has left on his teeshirt and tugs at that dark hair again. “Oi, Teeth, less biting unless you want me to bite you back.”

The stranger flushes under the pale glow of the hall light and Sebastian cannot help but feel a thrill at the sight. It's easier to see the brat here, and it's not a bad view at all. The little Irish stranger is all fiery, dark eyes full of malice, resentment and seduction and those dark holes dominate a pointy little face twisted in defiance. The skin of the interloper's cheeks burns almost as brightly as his wet lips, fully swollen from attacking Seb's chest.

Severin rolls his eyes at them both and pushes back the door further. “Anytime you want to stop flirting...”

Sebastian echoes his brother's gesture and follows. He tugs his captive along and pays little mind to the way the brat drags up his legs to kick at the walls, doing his best to find purchase and twist out of Seb's strong grasp.

As Severin leads the way into the unexplored warren of former servants' passageways a frantic scuffling is heard ahead. Sebastian feels the slight bloke under his arm stiffen and for a moment the stranger's feet thud bonelessly to the floor, seemingly too anxious to thrash. Seb almost feels bad for the waif, but then the wild creature gives a scream of fury that is stifled by a sharp stab of vivid pain in Sebastian's chest as the brat sinks his teeth even further than before.

Seb grunts and pulls at his feral beast's dark hair to extract that sharp mouth. “No need for this foreplay,” Sebastian mutters. He merely gets an elbow in his flesh as the interloper ignores the warning to instead swing his legs again. The frustrating little thing does not easily fold into a shape that Seb can firmly pin.

Severin rolls his eyes again at the pair but his supercilious expression fades as he takes note of the newest stranger, cornered in the place once meant to keep people safe.

A look around their surroundings suggests Seb's new toy has only this one friend, and the pair have been living here for quite some time. Not as long as the panic room functions have been installed in the servants' quarters, but perhaps years. The walls are interestingly marked and they have rather more things than expected of fresh runaways.

That other stranger though. He's a shock of dark hair -longer than the other's- and tripping over too-large clothes. His eyes don't burn with the same fire as Seb's newest toy.

Sebastian growls as the wild thing under his arm fights harder to be free. The brunet is evidently protective of the new, trembling stranger.

Severin approaches their additional uninvited house guest and out of the corner of his eye Seb notices how his brother's puffed up, threatening build shrinks into a more reassuring posture. They've encountered terror like this in civilians living in the Middle East, and Severin has always been good with people who aren't telling him what to do.

“Hey, hey, shh,” Sev soothes. The stranger before him looks frankly terrified and tries to dart away, but naturally there is nowhere to go when Severin's build is so broad.

Of course, Sebastian acknowledges, his brother always has liked the soft ones.

Sighing, Sebastian crouches down on the floor to make his own considerable mass less intimidating. His captive is clearly confused by the move, but Seb pulls him down too and tries to contain the writhing creature.

Severin catches the movement in his peripheral vision and circles his hysterical waif to better observe Sebastian.

“Just the two of you, huh?” says Seb. “You don't half cause a riot between you.”

The brunet in Seb's arms senses a change in atmosphere. His frenzied movements slow before he tries to dart out from underneath Sebastian's grip swiftly. Seb has none of that and pulls the captive in close with a wry grin.

The stranger's exasperated breath on Seb's skin sends tingles all along the golden flesh and beyond his tan lines.

Severin uses the moment to scoop up his trembling stranger. It's not an easy task: beneath a billowing cardigan and oversized jeans this second brunet is equally scrawny, made up of elbows and air.

Sev holds the little thing flush against himself and shushes him. The brunet's rabbit heart pounds with such terror it rocks Severin's own chest.

“We _were_ going to give you the hidings of your lives,” says Sebastian, “but I think one of you might keel over of heart failure any second.”

“I'm not gonna hurt you,” Severin murmurs against his captive's warm scalp. He feels wetness against his neck but the scrawny young man hasn't opened his mouth to bite the way damp rings on Seb's clothing attest to. The fearful noises emanating from this brunet's thin chest break into a sob.

Sebastian sighs, pulls his own captive to his tiny feet, and pats him down for weapons without a word. Satisfied, he tugs his little spitfire towards Severin's cardigan-clad crybaby.

“Here, calm him down,” Seb mutters. “It's no fun punishing anyone who _starts_ in tears.”

The feral stranger pulls away from Sebastian's grasp disgustedly and approaches his frightened companion. Reaching out, the fiercer brunet pulls at the panicked young man's longer hair, not entirely kindly. After a moment the spark of annoyance in the shorter-haired young man fades and he lowers his face to the soft skull whose hair he slowly grips more loosely in his fist.

“I'm here,” the feral young man mutters.

His companion seems somewhat unnerved by him also, but nods. His thin shoulders sag with some measure of relief.

Sebastian gazes around at their surroundings. “You two have been staying here a long time, huh?”

The brunet who has bitten him turns and narrows those captivating dark eyes. “This is _our_ place.”

Sebastian considers. He and Sev were bundled off to boarding school at age thirteen, from where they progressed to university and then the army. Sebastian is well used to fraternal, communal living spaces and deep down part of him has no idea how he is going to tolerate living alone once Severin's leave is over.

“Well it's _my_ house now,” says Sebastian, “but it is a big one...”

Severin looks up at his brother with a less surprised expression that Seb likes.

Sebastian pokes the feral brunet hard between those prominent shoulder blades. “If the pair of you can _pack in_ all of the playing silly beggars, then you both can stay.”

“In our own fucking house?” the feral brunet retorts.


	7. White of the Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seb's current opinion of Richie isn't exactly kind, but I don't think it's bad enough to need a warning? It's obviously not my personal opinion, since I still stammer whenever I'm overly tired or emotional.

Sebastian loves a fight, and more than a fight he loves being pinned at by eyes full of fight. Eyes full of fight that openly declare their desire to tear him open whilst being shrouded in the tauntness of eyelids that tell the perceptive blond that his potential opponent does not _only_ want to fight thrill Sebastian even further.

The scrappier of the two brunet squatters has such eyes, irises nearly as dark as the pupils and the spirit within as all consuming as the dark of night in a desert cut off from all but the enemy and the blood underfoot pooling so thick in the caked, congealing sand that it stays thick in a man's nostrils like the spores of red mist that descend when soldiers go battle crazy. The eyes are a special sort of wild, quick and slow all at once as they dart over every tell in your alert body whilst regarding you with the slow, feral determination of a creature that well knows pain and fear and death and excitement and fucking amidst all that.

Oh, Sebastian wants this one. This young bloke. It's a pull that's nothing like healthy but it's instinctive nonetheless and Seb follows his instincts. Sebastian Moran is the special sort of broken that needs to hunt big game down in impossibly tight spaces and trades in a heartbeat everything he has worked his entire life to build for the sake of nothing more than a brotherly bond.

Sebastian Moran does not make smart decisions: he makes memorable ones. From the way his biting brunet stares and curls back bloody blowjob lips to bare teeth Seb wants buried deeper in his skin Sebastian _knows_ his little uninvited house guest will be memorable.

Sebastian wants to tie the little dark-haired beast down and climb astride as the brunet hisses and spits and bucks and does his damnedest to tear out Seb's jugular with those pretty little teeth. The animal gives him an ugly look and Sebastian knows the younger man can read his urge, smell it in the air as obvious as blood lust or the scent of death in a confined space.

The brunet tilts his fragile, bony face and raises his brows. It's half a challenge; he knows what Seb wants but he clearly does not trust the bigger man. Not that the rutting Sebastian wants to do necessarily has to include trust, just a pinch of consent and preferably a whole lot of malice.

Sebastian likes a challenge, and he doesn't know any better than that of an equally vicious mind.

Severin is an entirely different beast, and his restive gaze travels back and forth between Sebastian and their first guest, strong lower jaw jutted out because he is ignoring his own urge: Sev grinds his teeth when he is impatient and he always tries to be so very patient with all of Sebastian's less savoury qualities. They are brothers, and deeply loyal to one another, however different they may be.

And they are different. Sebastian and Severin are in many, many ways a similar breed and well-matched in a great many things. They gel superbly as only the truly akin can. But they are not the same.

Severin raises his own brows and it means an entirely different thing now from what it meant when Seb's intended lay/prey performed the action mere moments before. Sev pointedly draws his brother's gaze to the _other_ brunet and Sebastian looks.

A pitiful, fidgety, fitful little creature, the second brunet cuts a far less intoxicating figure in Seb's disgusted opinion. The brunets appear to be brothers also, similar in colouring, age and height, and yet Sebastian sees no competition in the pair. He has no interest in a highly strung, fretful, timorous little pet and feels even less so in the company of his agitated, snarling, fanged young beast.

“I'm Severin,” says Sev in that bright, soothing voice that always makes Sebastian have to consciously focus on not rolling his eyes at. Where Severin gets that peaceable, friendly warmth Seb has never managed to understand, although he has certainly often wondered. Sev likes to shoot and fight and fend for himself in the wilderness just as Sebastian does, so how can he find the patience or even _interest_ in the weak, pretty, terminally trembly soft creatures of the world?

Sebastian has tried to needle Sev out of this temperament more times over the years than either of them can correctly count. Severin has not been unresponsive to the baiting, and the uneven bridge of Sebastian's nose can openly attest to Sev's sometimes-pleasure in giving his irritating brother a sore face, but Severin does not change. His soft, humanitarian streak remains and if a soldier ever had a broken bird's saviour complex it is him, in Sebastian's opinion.

“I-I-I'm… um, _Rrrrich_ -ie...” offers the jittery, young brunet in a hesitant voice, and Seb cannot deny even to himself that this snivelling, _near hysterical_ fragile little flower is exactly Severin's type.

Sebastian does not understand why. He does not understand the draw _at all_. However, he holds a very deliberate silence despite the strong urge he has to mock the little runt's nervous -or perhaps, if typical of Sev's tastes, _permanent_ stutter.

Sebastian sighs, and plays nicely because he loves his brother and because it is no fun jabbing at someone too wet to fight back. “I'm Seb,” he says, and barely pays attention to the weak smile R-R-R-Richie gives him warily in response. Sebastian's pale eyes are on the feral thing, and his own fangs show as he asks, “And what about you, Teeth? Have you got something we can call you?”

The wild brunet mutters something that might be, 'Gosh, can you do tricks too?' or, 'Boss, and I am going to kill you,' or perhaps it might even have been something else, but Sebastian, like an animal himself, does not need to hear the exact words. He recognises the little brat's rude tone.

Sebastian puts his large hand on the back of the wild brunet's neck. “Sorry pet, can you speak up?”

The brunet flinches instantly as though burned, and not merely by the thrill of a heated touch either. He whirls around and purses his lips, evidently trying not to betray just how much the brief touch truly hurt.

Sebastian winces in faux sympathy and cannot stop himself reaching out thick, calloused fingers to brush the sore nub of bone at the nape of the brunet's thin neck. Seb's touch is more gentle than the brunet expects, but what would a city kid know of a sniper's sensitive fingers? The faded Dublin accent suggests at most a childhood familiarity with car bombs, and there's not a whole lot of subtlety in that.

“Swollen,” says Sebastian, and he catches the way that his suddenly very still mark glances _down_ before he glances up. “Looks like a sore one,” Sebastian continues. “We'd best keep an eye on it.”

The brunet twists out of the touch. “Just an eye you want to keep on me is it now?”

“Break into my bedroom again in the middle of the night and I guess you'll find out,” Sebastian drawls.


	8. Kicked Out Of One's Own Place (it's not a bar but I'd drown in your eyes)

“Speaking of breaking into other people's bedrooms… care to get the fuck out of ours?” Teeth demands. He is a little more now than Peter Pan's shadow in this light and Sebastian can make out a better outline of the brunet's prominent cheek and collar bones.

The sight makes Sebastian want to see more of the feral young man's body cut up by light and shadow. Those pointy little hipbones have left bruises in Seb's flesh and the disgraced soldier is certain that those hips are easily as bone white as the teeth bared at him.

Sebastian is open in his staring, and he can tell by the other's swallow and minute shift in posture that the younger man notices it. Seb tisks. “I've told you, haven't I? This house is mine. If you want to continue staying here I suggest you find a nicer way to address us.”

“W-W-We're sorry!” blurts the little long-haired creature at Severin's side. Teeth casts Richie a harsh look. The other brunet closes his mouth at once and stares back with wide, openly anxious eyes.

Teeth turns back and tilts up his chin at Sebastian stiffly. Seb can tell the movement hurts the brunet's neck where those upper vertebrae smashed off of the floor.

“I am _not sorry_ ,” the wild thing says, “and I want you both to leave.”

Sebastian grins viciously. “Ah, I can't do that,” he says with eyes that sparkle in the meagre light. “I should _look you over_ after our little tussle. I dare say you need _medical attention_.”

Teeth curls his lip. “You're welcome to leave your eyes in my safekeeping and the _rest_ of you can leave.”

Sebastian lets out a bark of laughter. He's going to have th-

Severin takes his do-gooder gaze off of Richie long enough to speak. “Perhaps we could leave _playing doctor_ for the night and let the kids sleep?”

Sebastian's blue eyes flash at his brother in sinful amusement. Although younger, neither of the brunets are _kids_ and it is clear from the soft chemistry between Severin and Richie that Sev is _quite_ aware of this fact.

Sebastian crosses his arms and grins at the room. “You know, it _is_ long past the bedtime of any good little boys, but uh, I haven't seen any evidence that we _have_ any good little lads staying with us.”

Teeth's jaw tenses promisingly. Sebastian watches the shifting shadows there with interest as the brunet snaps back, “Well as I haven't seen any evidence of intellect in you, I'll point out that he was telling you that it is time. To. _Leave_.”

Sebastian's smile is wide, and deadly. “You gonna make me?” he asks in cheerful threat.

The feral stranger's dark eyes glitter with malicious promise and Sebastian feels a thrill at their regard. Being so much smaller the brunet is no match physically but Seb is delightedly certain that Teeth has morbidly sneaky tendencies just aching to be let out the second Sebastian is distracted.

Sebastian loves being taken by surprise. He loves a threat, a fight, a _fright_. Honestly he doesn't even care whether he wins as long as the adrenaline flows and his lip gets bloodied.

Something about this scrawny street kid in the crumpled, dark shirt hits Sebastian with a flash of need almost as compelling as a fist to the nose. “Well?” Seb prompts with seductive, taunting, further warning.

A cold smile spreads like an infection across Teeth's pale face. “Clod, you'll find my presence unappealing eventually.”

Sebastian raises his thick brows. “Isn't that the human condition? To detest the company of the human race?”

Teeth gestures with his arm. “Not entirely as dull as you look perhaps.” His fingers open up to point towards the door.

Sebastian takes a step closer. His pores radiate violent confidence.

Severin steps between them smartly and takes an expert grip of his brother. “Let's all get some sleep, huh? Separately.”

The feral brunet and Sebastian both look at Sev with dazed, momentarily puzzled expressions. Severin gets the feeling they had both entirely forgotten his presence, although the sniffling brunet watching them doesn't seem to have. Severin tries to ignore the telltale glow in his chest and tries to guide his brother towards the door.

Sebastian snorts but permits him. “I was having fun,” he mutters in playful obnoxiousness. 

The dark haired brothers watch them leave and do not move to speak to each other until the Morans are far enough away from earshot.

“Why do I get the feeling I'm going to find both of you in a puddle of blood and I'll be expected to cook you both breakfast?” Severin asks.

Sebastian raises his brows with feigned shock in that manner siblings have of not being shocked, or very impressed, at all. “I can cook his damn breakfast.”

“I doubt it. That one's going to stab you in your sleep,” Sev responds sagely. 

Sebastian looks at his brother sidelong. “I'm not worried. I like foreplay.”

Severin rolls his eyes. “Glad to see this change of lifestyle does not include starting to make healthy choices.”

“Really? You're already making jokes about getting me discharged?” Sebastian says.

“I'm your brother and nothing is off limits,” Sev says comfortably.

“That's not what you said the last time you got me this soundly spanked,” Sebastian says dryly.

Severin's eyelids flicker uncomfortably. “The last time you didn't offer to take it.”

Sebastian shoves Sev with his shoulder. “Relax. If I wanted you to look that guilty I'd ask you what your intentions are for that… other guy.”

Severin's lips close primly and he swallows before muttering, “Nothing. Shut up.”

“Oh please. He has 'save me, daddy' written all over him,” Seb comments.

Severin eyes his brother exasperatedly. “There's nothing wrong with wanting to be looked after, just like there's nothing wrong with being the one wanting to do the looking after.”

“Look after you don't I?” Sebastian says, and Severin smiles warmly at his brother even though they both know it is not the same.

“I look after you right back, tosser,” says Severin.

Sebastian makes a gesture with his curled fist at his face. Grinning, he responds, “Take care of this.”

“Sorry, bruv,” Sev says, “I don't have 'ruin me, daddy' written all over me.”

Sebastian briefly glances back over his shoulder and entirely misses sight of anyone behind them. “He's fit though, right? Looks like he'd rather bite your cock off than take it.”

Severin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, because that's what I look for in a partner,” he says sarcastically.

Sebastian shrugs. “If I wanted that wet shit I'd choke myself, except at least that way I'd actually have fun.”

“Thank fuck we're not sharing a room anymore,” Severin says, but he's laughing.


	9. Keep My Things Out Of Your Mouth (And Your Hands Off Of His Neck)

Severin stirs in the morning as Sebastian exits the master bedroom with a heavy, purposeful stride. Seb has been awake for hours, pacing, and even longer still staring into the surrounding, departing gloom as the rising dawn entering his room chases away all it can of the night.

Severin rolls over and calls out to his brother. “Get in here!”

Sebastian glowers and considers ignoring the demand -it's his damned house after all, and he is the master of it- but the tone of Sev's voice persuades Sebastian to reluctantly enter his brother's room. Seb grunts a greeting. There is no question to his tone; he knows exactly why Severin has called upon him.

Sev looks his brother over and winces wryly. “Firstly, you want to hang fire a bit if you want to get anywhere with our latest acquaintances because you're not going to endear yourself by storming down at this ungodly hour. Secondly, go take a fucking shower and shave, because you look like a half-mad murdering machine.”

“Firstly,” Sebastian mutters, “I'm not looking to be best buddies; I'm looking for a fight and whatever else I can get.” His eyes glitter tellingly. “And secondly, why would I pretend to be anything I'm not?”

Sev rolls his eyes and throws a scrunched up teeshirt at his brother. “Don't go all psycho killer until I'm safely out of the country!”

Seb catches the teeshirt and flashes his teeth. “Not before you've had your prick in that snivelling little bitch, you mean.”

Severin sighs. “Well I'm not going to get much after you and the other one have knocked seven bells out of each other, am I, but even if I don't get anywhere I would _rather_ you act with just a little bit of civility this time. You've offered to _live_ with these guys.”

Sebastian stills for a beat before slowly grimacing. Oh yeah. If he wants anything like fraternal familiarity and companionable camaraderie once Sev fucks off back to base then some semblance of _fucking boring_ civility is necessary. Sighing through his teeth Seb settles against the wall and slides down.

Severin rolls his eyes and ignores his brother's muttered curse. Standing, Sev gathers fresh clothing and pads across the hall to the shower, asking, “It's not that bad, is it?”

Sebastian wrinkles his nose at his brother's openly false sympathy. Sev has left the bathroom door open and Seb curls his lip at his brother as the other blond undresses. “I don't like playing nice,” Sebastian whines.

Severin snorts and points his toothbrush at his brother whilst switching the shower on with his other hand. “The award for understatement of the century goes to mister -shit-for-brains over there.”

Sebastian pulls himself lazily to his feet as Sev steps into the shower. “Pretend to be the sensible one all you like; I didn't get a discharge all by myself you know.”

Severin makes a disparaging noise under the water. “If you're going to keep casting that up you should just take your belt to my arse and be done with it.” He brushes his teeth in the shower and spits casually between his wet feet.

Sebastian picks up his brother's towel. “You'd get a kick out of that, you sick fuck. But beating you isn't nearly as fun as fighting with someone with a bit of _spark_.”

Severin rolls his eyes and drips water over the floor as he reaches out of the shower to place his toothbrush back on the sink. “You're the creep that gets a little too excited by violence; not me. And surely I'm more challenging to fight than that little waif downstairs.”

“You don't bite,” Sebastian scoffs. He is briefly conscious of the tender circles on his arms and chest where his skin has broken and bruised.

Severin grins saucily. “You don't know me as well as you think.” He disappears back under the stream of the showerhead to wash.

Sebastian snorts and reaches for the toothpaste with his free hand. He opens it with his teeth and uses his brother's wet toothbrush to brush his own teeth rather than heading back through to his en suite for his own.

Severin flicks water at his brother. “Do you mind? I dread to think where you've been.”

Sebastian uses the toothbrush for longer than strictly necessary before grinning widely with a mouth full of toothpaste foam and a small streak of blood. “I've been tested more recently than you,” he says before winking and spitting.

“Yeah, but I make a habit of taking PrEP with strangers and don't go bareback with any bird who says she's on the pill,” Sev scoffs. He holds out his hand.

Sebastian gives over his brother's towel. “What do I care if she's on the pill? Prefer anal anyway.”

“Such a gentleman,” responds Sev sardonically. He steps out of the shower and dries himself off before swatting his brother with the now semi-damp towel. “Get in there you hobo.”

Sebastian grimaces but drops his clothing and clambers under the warm spray. The bitemarks on the muscular blond's arms and chest instantly sting. He makes a face at Sev as his brother bends over the sink to shave. “I don't know why you're bothering to try to impress. That little bitch has got a hard-on for you for being his rugged, strong hero not some-”

Severin turns and gives Sebastian such a look that the other blond shuts up. “Please stop talking like you have any idea what he or I like. _I_ know that you think a fist to the face is foreplay.”

“Not with women,” Sebastian says defensively.

Severin rolls his eyes. “Is throwing a drink over you much better?”

Seb grins. “I like them feisty.”

“Most men would take that for a 'fuck off'.”

Sebastian shrugs. “It's about chemistry, isn't it. Some prim bitch might do that and mean it, but the fiery tarts I like do it just so you'll grab their arm when they go to slap you.”

“Ew, don't,” Sev says dryly.

“What, like you don't like a bird who'll scratch up your back and leave your lip bleeding?” Sebastian scoffs.

“A hard fuck's one thing but I don't see why there has to be blood,” Severin says, glancing over his shoulder as he finishes shaving. He has managed not to nick himself, which is not as easy for Sebastian with the way his facial scar puckers the skin.

“S'primal, innit,” Seb shrugs. “Gets the adrenaline going.”

“I don't really need someone to bite half my face off to get excited about sex,” Sev deadpans.

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Well that's why you and your sexlife are so painfully boring. Pass us that towel, will you?”

Sev does so, dryly asking, “And what would you know about it?”

“I know that you waste time on dates and I get straight to the shag,” Sebastian says as he towels himself dry.

A snort bounces off of the bathroom tiles. “My body's not covered in scars from previous sexual partners,” Sev points out.

“Exactly,” Seb says pityingly. Puddles of water circle both brothers' feet.

Severin rolls his eyes. “Just bloody shave, will you? I wanna make breakfast.” He drops his towel on the floor and walks over it, ineffectively drying both his soles and the floor as he reaches for his boxers.

“You need to get a bird,” says Sebastian as Severin snaps an elastic waistband up to his hips.

Sev gives his brother a terse look. “ _You_ need to stop sounding like our Da or you're going to end up a fucked up old man.”

Sebastian blinks owlishly then sneers. “Well that's well harsh. Stop being such a little bitch.”

Severin puts on a mocking voice. “' _Stop being such a little bitch_.'”

“What age are you, you prick? Knock it off.”

“ _'What age are you-_ '”

“Alright,” Sebastian says loudly, “I get it. Christ, you're annoying.”

“ _'Christ, you're annoying_ ',” says Severin, but he pulls on the rest of his clothes and sits on the dry edge of the large bath as Seb runs a hand over his wet jawline. “Just use my razor,” Sev says. “Your thing's a bloody accident waiting to happen. Literally.”

Sebastian considers arguing, but also considers that he's been up almost the whole night with the pent up energy related to his uninvited house guests. A small part of him was alert to a possibility of further attack, and a lot of Seb was tied up thinking about how he'd like to tie his feral night visitor down and do many unspeakable things.

Sebastian shaves. He catches his scarred skin near his cheekbones and raises his brows at his brother pointedly, as though Seb's own straight razor didn't often leave that same awkward area of flesh stinging more often than not.

“Put some clean clothes on,” Severin says with unsympathetic fondness. “I'll make breakfast.”

“You don't always have to make breakfast,” Sebastian says.

“I'm better at it,” says Sev. He takes a piece of clean toilet tissue and scrunches it to his brother's bleeding face. “And like you said, I owe you for getting you sacked.”

Sebastian looks at his brother frankly and his fingers curl around the tissue even though Seb is the sort of man not to care about dried blood streaking down his face. Severin understands the way the skin crinkles around Seb's blue eyes means, _'I didn't really mean that_.' 

Sev shoves his brother. “Stop being a girl,” he tells Seb.

“Now who's being like Dad?” Sebastian says. He pulls back the tissue and glances at the wet redness before pushing it back to his damp skin.

“Dad would have said 'faggot',” says Severin. He takes a fresh tissue, swapping it over against his brother's cheek before throwing the original one away. “And he wishes he could taste food half as good as I make.”

Sebastian gazes at his brother for a beat before changing tact. “I swear, if you make your new little crybaby Mickey Mouse pancakes-”

“Shut up,” Severin says without ire. “If you want to have an opinion on breakfast you can make it your own damned self.”

“But then you'd have to eat my cooking,” Sebastian points out.

Sev grimaces. “Lord help us all.” He pushes his brother again. “Go get dressed. I'm in no mood to be poisoned.”

Sebastian considers making a clever remark back but realises that for all his pent up energy this morning he is now suddenly tired. He merely nods his assent and walks back to his room to dress. Sev's cooking will wake him back up.

Sebastian tosses the used tissue away in the direction of a refuge bag full of wallpaper pieces and offcuts of skirting board. The blond considers the tasks to be completed today if he hopes to eventually get the cavernous house as he wants it. 

It would make most sense to wear something already covered in paint and sawdust.

Sebastian does not want that for today. His skin seems hypersensitive with lack of sleep and it throbs wherever it is broken. His head swims a little as though drunk. The sooner he is downstairs and has Sev's breakfast in him the better.

Sebastian thinks of dark eyes and dark hair and sharp teeth and tries not to. He pulls on some clean clothes and stares at the marks visible on the flesh of his arms that remains exposed to view. The colours are more spectacular than a sunset and Seb aches for more, on his flesh or another's. He shivers at the thought of the shadowy brunet with those clever, glittering eyes and sharp, wild teeth.

Sebastian sighs and has to find something else to think about as he waits for his arousal to go down. No need to put poor Sev off of his breakfast.

When Sebastian finally gets downstairs his nose is full of the mouthwatering scent of his brother's cooking. Seb follows it to the kitchen but does not find his brother.

Frowning, Sebastian starts striding towards the broken door from last night. He is relieved to find Sev standing outside of it, knocking.

“Breakfast,” Severin says with a warm, winning voice into the narrow corridor.

Sebastian approaches and sees the two brunets from last night eying his brother and Sev's offering with clearly mixed emotions.

“We don't have to start being friends,” Teeth says.

Sebastian smirks at him. “And yet we were getting so close last night.”

The brunet grimaces. Behind him the feral one's longer-haired brother gives Seb an anxious look then glances back at Severin, expression relaxing marginally.

“Are we eating together?” Seb asks.

His attacker from last night tilts his chin as though challenged. “Why not?” he responds sharply.

Sev says, “Most of the furniture won't be delivered until later but-”

“We have a table,” says Teeth. He turns and heads back inside. His dark-haired companion in the oversized cardigan quickly trots along at his side. Alongside each other Sebastian notices that Teeth is a couple of inches shorter than the other brunet, but he seems to have a hell of a lot more personality.

The meeker brunet approaches the aforementioned table and clears it quietly. Severin joins him and quickly sets down plates.

Teeth merely eyes Sebastian's biceps with amusement. “Do you need some salve for those?”

“You offering to be my nursemaid?” Seb smirks in challenge.

The brunet scowls in disgust. Before he can retort Sebastian pulls the brat close and asks, “How's your neck?”

Teeth yelps in pain at the brush of Seb's fingers and glares as he tries to pull away. Sebastian holds the smaller man firm, amused by the struggle, and mockingly winces as he pulls down the back of the brunet's collar. The flesh covering the nub of bone there is strikingly swollen and red.

Sebastian scratches short nails over it lightly and smirks at the other man's angry, agonised flinch. “Bone's bruised,” Seb says with some satisfaction. “You're gonna need to be gentle with that.”

“You're going to need to put me down, moron,” Teeth snaps.

Severin glances over at them with an unimpressed expression. “Leave the posturing for later, lads. Food'll get cold.”

The more timid of the two brunets kneels before the coffee table warily. He gives his brother and Sebastian an anxious look then shyly glances to Severin.

Severin separates out food with a brief smile that brunet's way before calling out, “Seb, put him _down_.”

Sebastian's nostrils are as full of the other brunet -the one in his _grip_ \- as they are of the good food set before them. He wants Teeth out of that shirt and whimpering, writhing, hissing under his touch.

Teeth pulls out of Sebastian's heated grasp and sits down at a deliberate distance away. He glares at Seb from across the table.


	10. I Don't Care About The Whites of Your Eyes

The Moran brothers are well accustomed to being aware of their surroundings and assessing any potential dangers. Many years ago they were taught a colour code for that awareness. White – unaware – a terrible state to be in. Dangerous. Yellow – aware of surroundings but with reason to be relaxed – an ideal state. Orange – aware of a potential threat. Be careful; be ready. 

Red. Danger. Bad.

The brunet in the cardigan – Richie- is pale faced even as his lips turn red from chewing. The boy is so pale when Severin watches Richard swallow coffee the dark liquid shows right through the man's skin. Sebastian notes even this poor excuse for a man knows better than to stay in the white state. For all Richie visibly lapses into moments of insipid, ignorant contemplation – and a number of amusingly heated thoughts about Sev based on the unmistakable way Richie's paper white cheeks blush rose when he looks at Seb's brother- Richie's seemingly meagre senses are honed enough to snap back every few moments to an unsettled, wary state. The brunet's ears all but prick up in tense alertness whenever it occurs to the small man that he is in mixed company. White, yellow, orange, white.

Sebastian knows this boy isn't a fighter. Richie is like Severin's eggs: sunny side up and ready to spill their innards at the slightest pressure.

Sebastian's favourite part of his English breakfast is the collection of fried red tomatoes on his plate. They are split open and sweating, deliciously dirtied by crisp, dark fat left behind by the selection of breakfast meat.

The swollen nub of aching flesh peeking out of Teeth's shirt collar is not nearly so red as Sebastian's tomatoes, but it does make Seb's mouth water. It is a dark pink that concentrates angrily in the centre, not unlike a piece of rare-cooked meat all but bloody in the middle. Sebastian would quickly push aside a steak for a lick of that salty neck instead.

Teeth's limbs are tight and tensely held. Yellow. The brunet eventually glances up at Seb and - _red_. Sebastian's blue eyes stay fixed on Teeth even as the way the feral young man's dark gaze slashes Seb to the bone in its steak knife sharpness.

Sebastian's hard as the utensils in his hands and his stomach flutters in a way he wishes was indigestion.

Seb cannot help but think that by sitting on the floor by the laden coffee table as they are that he and this creature are not so very far from grappling as they did on his bedroom floor before. Teeth barely touches his food but smirks over his cooked breakfast at Sebastian. Narrow shoulders lean back a little as though the brunet is relaxing down from a red state into orange, but the tight whiteness of Teeth's knuckles declare their readiness to return to red at the slightest provocation.

Sebastian is mostly confident that he can put his nighttime visitor back in a red state with an arsenal of different threatening smiles, but he refrains.

“I can't keep calling you Teeth,” Sebastian announces.

The table goes silent. No noises of cutlery scraping plates or soft chewing or food bursting or the soft thump of coffee mugs against the table. All Seb can hear is his pulse in his ears.

Teeth sucks in a considered breath between his aforementioned. 

His eyes are a funny sort of dark: molten amber flaked in sharp sierra and spun taupe like looking out into explosive fiery sky during a long fall. Sebastian's eyelids ache to look away just as they would strive to close against acrid smoke.

Sebastian's head starts to pound like he needs to breathe… Did he forget..?

The brunet with the firestone eyes twists up the corners of his lips in a semblance of a smile that spreads to those eyes only in a glint of taunting. “You're the sort to learn names, are you?” Teeth's voice is rich, cruel and amused.

 _Threat_ , red. Safe, yellow. The colours flicker too swiftly in Seb's brain. A candle flame never quite burns orange, does it? The brightest parts of Teeth's eyes are almost orange, too amber to resemble the rich warmth of a campfire. Heat, comfort. Burning, danger.

Amber though. Something soft turned hard. Sebastian is familiar enough with woodland to know the smell of tree resin and how it can capture uncautious little insectoid creatures inescapably. He's found it hard enough to force that cloying substance from his own skin time and again.

Seb suspects many things get frozen and outright killed by the amber of this brunet's gaze.

Sebastian's voice sounds surprisingly rich when he speaks. It is swollen thick with arousal and deepened as though the circumference of his chest is not proof enough of his manliness. “Try me,” he says.

Teeth swallows and for the first time Seb notices how smooth and vulnerable that throat is. Sebastian and Severin have jagged Adam's apples so prominent they could poke a person's eye out, but this one is so delicate. That softness belies the brittleness that radiates through the pores and sharp bones of the fickle creature. Like those captivating amber eyes, there is a welcoming softness that Sebastian does not believe at all.

Teeth returns his gaze to his plate and Seb feels suddenly lightheaded, as though that surgical gaze really did cut him. Perhaps, Sebastian supposes, all of his blood flow has congregated in his nether regions.

Teeth glances surreptitiously up again as though he can _smell_ Sebastian's arousal. Seb supposes that beneath his trousers his wet spot is shining just as brightly as those eyes, because even through a table he is certain the light from that cursed amber has him.

“Rhymes with 'him',” Teeth says in an odd, half-bored, half-sing-song voice.

Sebastian swallows. He remembers the presence of Severin and Richie, the other occupants of this memorable coffee table.

“Brogue like that… Tim,” Sebastian says.

Richard immediately turns his head away.

His brother holds up three pale fingers. One drops down and Seb's stomach amost feels like it is caught under the brunet's digits.

“Jim,” Severin says calmly. His plate is empty, and Richie's is also.

Sebastian's attention has been on… _Jim?_ but perhaps his brunet has been preoccupied too. Teeth's plate is not empty either.

A pointer finger flicks at Sev with an elegant flourish. “Clever boy,” says Jim.

His teeth are his white as Sebastian's knuckles wrapped around his crockery. Seb's senses scream _red, red, red_ as his bite marks when Jim turns his head and reunites amber with blue.


	11. Perchance To Stalk Awhile

Jim has an interesting restless energy. He pushes up from the coffee table and leaves the crockery where it lies with such an exaggerated motion that it is clear his disdain for helping tidy up is not due to fatigue.

Richie startles at the movement and that is interesting too: he is clearly prone to flinching but he stifles the instinct swiftly. This brunet is not trying to man up. There's nothing macho about Richie that Sebastian can see.

Richie is hiding his reaction from Teeth - _Jim._

That interests Seb, but not quite so much as Jim _leaving_ does.

The narrow brunet casts Severin a swift, calculating look and seems to judge Sebastian's brother a safe companion for Richie. Seb curls his lip: Jim is probably right about that. It's almost embarrassing.

“Don't take leave of your senses,” Jim drawls. The noise is a velvety threat that makes Richie nod minutely, big dark _boring_ eyes widening in nervous solemnity. Severin looks over this exchange with passive interest and Seb wonders what could possibly be fun about a slow romantic entanglement. It is certainly nothing like waiting on your belly in the mud all day for the perfect shot, because sex with someone like _Richie_ cannot possibly be anywhere near as exciting a payoff as blowing someone's head off.

Sebastian blinks and thinks he can smell blood and gore as his pale eyelashes lower and rise. Phantom smells again. Seb is uncertain whether it's a residual memory or an overactive imagination, but the scent gets him hard once more as he watches Teeth - _Jim_ \- move away.

Sebastian wants to grab that skinny wrist and pull the stranger against his chest. Instead the muscled blond takes a breath and asks, “Somewhere to be?”

Jim smiles as though he hurts people for questions, but he answers anyway. With a question. “Given the state of your new premises, _don't you_?”

“We'd get through the work sooner if you'd leave it alone,” Sebastian answers.

“We have,” Richie says softly.

Seb ignores him and watches instead the way Jim's brows quirk. “Idle hands do the devil's work,” Jim says.

Beautiful brogue or not, Sebastian does not believe Jim is religious. There is far too much unrepentant wickedness and sin radiating from the slight man's pores.

“There's a lot I can handle,” Seb says.

Jim curls his lips then and it is clear the brunet thinks Sebastian is only good for working with his hands and brute strength – not for wit. The blond burns inwardly in indignation and his thick fingers tremble with the adrenaline-spiked _need_ to prove Jim wrong. Sebastian wants badly to wipe that look from the smaller man's face and replace it with something more respectful.

“I'll leave you to your handywork then,” Jim says smoothly. He casts Richie a last warning look then saunters jaggedly through the doorway.

“Right,” Sebastian mutters. He watches with frustration as the little man escapes. Seb feels both Severin's eyes and his own dignity telling him not to follow. Sebastian has to flex his fingers to allow some of the pent up need for a chase to evaporate itself from his body.

“So,” Severin says brightly, “what's the plan for today?”

“I've got some pages to memorise,” Richie answers shyly.

That gets Sev's interest and he widens his eyes at the smaller man in a way that baffles Seb. Severin asks the long-haired urchin a few questions which tease honest-sounding answers from Richie.

Sebastian honestly doesn't know why Sev cares. It's evident from the genuine, warm way Severin talks to his new puppy that Sev isn't making conversation just to get Richie into bed; even more disgustingly, it is clear from the way the pair keep ducking their heads towards each other that they would be pretty keen on any encouragement to share one.

Sebastian feels his lip curl away from his teeth in distaste. His expression twitches as he hears the front door close behind his far more interesting little squatter.

“Some stuff should get delivered today,” Seb announces brusquely. “Shouldn't be anything that takes two to carry in.”

Severin looks at him sharply. “You're not staying t-”

“Got something I need to pick up,” Sebastian says dismissively. He catches sight of Richie's worried eyes before leaving and does not care a jot.

At this time of year it is difficult not to smell the river the moment one is outdoors. Tourists might expect the smell of the filthy water to be worst in the heat of the summer, but in the autumn the smell of brine is strong. Sebastian steps past the broken shells of freshwater mussels as he crosses the pavement with an understanding of the hellish traffic system that only comes naturally to a native Englishman. A large seagull picking at the carcass of whatever bird was cracking shells open on the nearby kerbstones ignores the hustle and bustle of passersby, but hops a few steps aside when Sebastian strides by.

There's no scrawny, sharp-elbowed, sharper-toothed brunet in sight although Sebastian scans the area very carefully. Perhaps it's possible that the slight man truly was Peter Pan's shadow and faded out of sight in the wan daylight.

Overfilled bins spill onto the street and emit a nostril-curling stench of sickly sweet decay into the already polluted air. Sebastian hears a streak of Korean pop music as a skinny girl in a parka and a stylised surgical mask skids on rotted cardboard as she bursts out of the sandwich shop to his left. The fresh smell of melting cheese and warm bread disappears when the door closes behind her with a tinkle.

Sebastian raises a thick eyebrow at an old biddy in a mobility car who seemed to think for a minute that she was going to cut through his path to avoid the widespread puddle of someone last night's former stomach contents. The vehicle makes an annoying noise as it slows. Seb steps past it coolly and surveys the flow of the population around him.

Commuters with coffees. Nannies taking toddlers to the parks. Joggers. Dogwalkers. Vagrants. Students.

Where do men in their twenties go at this time in the morning? Lectures or employment?

Jim wears suits, so he is probably in employment, even if he is a squatter. Sebastian steps past a homeless young man with a cardboard message explaining an intention to save for a deposit for winter. It's bloody expensive to live here.

Jim's outfits look well-tailored so he could work in fashion retail, but he has a clever glint about those dark eyes which make Sebastian think Teeth crunches numbers. Seb takes note of the nearby banks and accountants' offices within walking distance of his new home.

Jim is somewhere closeby in this city and Sebastian can almost smell him.


	12. Can You Hear Me Now?

There is a constant roar of traffic even at this hour. The increasing normality of flexible working patterns for pencil pushers has supposedly lessened the commuter congestion somewhat; having been more out of the country than in it over the past few years Sebastian only notices that there are cars in droves everywhere he looks.

They seem to be pumping out less visible fumes than he remembers, but there are also a lot more people wearing those ridiculous-looking surgical-type masks and no one else gives them a second glance.

Sebastian strides through the middle of the pavements, glowering at anyone who makes the mistake of not immediately getting out of his way. The puckered scar on his face seems to deter most people from any further challenge but it does not wholly prevent the odd wide-eyed student freezing in place with an expression caught between terror and lust.

Seb might have been interested in playing with one or two of those, were he not otherwise occupied. He blocks out the noise of traffic and the pounding hearts of strangers.

He's not listening for Jim exactly, just… being very aware of clues in his environment. Sebastian has a habit of keeping out of grabbing distance of the kerb or doorways or street corners but he moves in and out of nearness to conversing strangers straining his ears for something that might betray Teeth's whereabouts.

England's a multicultural place despite certain political parties' best efforts and particularly with the influx of students at this time of year there are a lot of accents to pick out and decipher.

There is only one that Sebastian is listening out for. It's curious that Seb's two unexpected house guests can look so blatantly alike and yet sound so different. Beneath his stutter Richie's accent is bland Cockney, but Jim…

That's a Southern Irish drawl that Seb is straining his ears to hear.

Strangely, it is not an accent or a word at all that first catches Sebastian's attention. The blond discreetly scans his surroundings and determines the plausibility of following the captivating noise.

Seb picks out a warren of an alleyway between two shop fronts. One glance tells him it's a logistical nightmare: too many entrances or exits to be helpful or even safe. He also sees the back of a head above a dumpster.

Too tall to be Jim, and Sebastian is certain that the obscured man there did not make the disgruntled little noise that is still ringing quietly between Seb's ears.

Sebastian enters the alleyway anyway.

This is a bloody stupid, terrible idea, and he knows it. There are too many exits, too many entrances, too little cover, too little visibility, too many unknowns… and for what? 

For three suited thugs to appear from behind the stained metal dumpster and walk towards Sebastian with evident intent.

Severin would curse him for his recklessness, but Sebastian feels something near pleasure when the biggest of the men decides to take a swing at him without saying a word. Seb shifts his weight slightly to the side and throws his own punch within the cover of the other man's outstretched arm. A swiftly following knee to the stomach from Sebastian gives the man no time to react before Seb stomps down on the stranger's leg and grabs fistfuls of suit jacket. 

Sliding a foot around the raggedly-breathing stranger's good leg to further throw the man off-balance, Sebastian uses his purchase on the man's clothing to throw him into the path of the nearest other approaching stranger.

Sebastian snatches the brief grace of mere seconds to block the round punch thrown by the third assailant (said punch being of hearty quality, but overstretched, and the poor judgement of balance making Seb's reaction rather easier) and returns three of his own. (One, glancing, to the soft part of the face; one, effective, to the throat; one, unnecessary and unsporting to the blackout spot on the back of the other man's skull.) Number Three crumples to the ground and does not get up.

Assailants One and Two have righted themselves and don't seem overly impressed with Sebastian's flying fists. The smaller of the remaining men reaches into his pocket and Sebastian kicks out before any weapon can be brought into the action. Seb puts Two between himself and One, doing his best not to trip over Three, and wonders whether he has time to break Two's arm before One reaches them.

No. A quick glance up tells Sebastian to ignore the pounding sound of the blood drumming in his ears and be practical. Sebastian circles Two a little (who is now flexing his well-kicked hand and evidently not used to swinging with his other) whilst keeping One in sight. Seb slaps away a clumsy left-handed punch, coming in close and quick with a knee and then an elbow that don't give Two time to get his red hand back into his pocket. Sebastian pushes Two into One.

One bats his shorter companion aside impatiently and approaches Seb with intent ferocity. He reaches for Sebastian's throat (a feat not many men are big enough to feel confident doing over other things, such as kicking Seb's shins and running away) and does not entirely fail, strong fingers enclosing around Sebastian's clothing.

Sebastian checks his surroundings as he grabs the restraining hand with one of his own. As he fights to pry it off Seb spreads the fingers of his other hand and flies them towards One's open eyes.

The noise One makes is not a pleasant one, although Sebastian enjoys it. One pulls back but stubbornly (perhaps exhibiting bravery and stupidity in equal measures) refuses to let Seb's clothing go.

Sebastian headbutts the large man (feeling fleeting interest at the novelty of their minimal height different) and peels the obtrusive fingers back. In easier numbers Sebastian might have taken hold of One's wrist and a few fingers, manipulating them like a joystick until One was on his knees and ready to either submit or be kicked in the face.

Today Seb instead takes One's knee, then punches the big man in the jaw, then slams One's skull into the wall. It does not make a wet sound, but One stays down.

Two does not look confident, but he has pulled a knife from his cursed pocket. In lesser numbers Sebastian would have taken the weapon right away, but three men in a setting like this takes concentration. He constantly has to keep scanning his surroundings.

Sebastian notes Two is holding the knife awkwardly; the blow from earlier is evidently still effecting the man's fingers. Seb swipes hard at the inner wrist of his assailant and smirks briefly as the weak grip and stunned tendons send the knife spinning feet away into the dirt.

Two looks genuinely surprised, and also cannot ball his right hand into a fist. He reaches up to scratch at Sebastian's face with his left hand, which only needs Seb to straighten up his spine to keep safe from. Sebastian grabs both of Two's biceps, pinning them into the smaller man's torso, and slams Two into the wall. Two keeps his head forward, grunting an emittance of air and a fresh ache in his shoulders. Seb slams him again, harder, and they both hear a crack.

Two goes white and Sebastian knows the man has lost the taste for fighting. He knees Two in the gonads for good measure (or spite, truth be told) and eyes his surroundings.

Threat neutralised, near enough. Sebastian potters over towards the knife.

He hears a noise and straightens up quickly, finding himself looking down into inscrutable dark eyes.

“I do hope you are not going to make a habit of making a nuisance of yourself,” Jim says. “It's bad for business.”


	13. They're Calling It What, These Days?

Sebastian is breathing hard. He has not broken much of a sweat after his altercation with the three strangers, but tearing a new (old) house apart has helped plenty to keep him fit.

He does not quite know how to process the words, or even presence of, his latest obsession.

Said obsession makes no move to help the others; which is likely just as well since he's such a tiny, little thing built more of malice and brittle bird bones than anything particularly practical.

“What business could you possibly have with them?” Sebastian asks.

Three is starting to push himself to his hand and knees. His expression is somewhere between confused and pained. Assailants One and Two are in sorer states and don't look to be in any rush to move.

Jim's expression quirks just slightly in dark amusement. “Jealous, Basher?”

Sebastian swallows. There's something like a thousand volts of electricity in those two words by the way they make his heart stutter.

“Merely a concerned citizen,” Seb openly outright lies. “Little thing like you shouldn't be out in company like this. You'll do yourself a mischief.”

Jim's dark eyes glint. “You think I can't handle myself?”

Sebastian feels encouraged to trail his gaze down the smaller man's perplexing and electric little frame. The wounds Jim has made on Seb's arms and chest with those captivatingly sharp teeth throb as though aware of their inclusion in the conversation.

“I think you should have someone looking after you,” Sebastian says.

Jim gives a sharp little laugh. You can't always tell a man's accent by just his laugh but with this one you can: it's rich and lilting and makes Sebastian want to bend the little brat over and bite Jim's wan neck.

“You don't seem like the homemaker type,” Jim says.

“That's not your type anyway,” Seb says confidently.

The small Irishman curls his thin lips. “I'd probably be insulted if I asked you what you thought it was, wouldn't I?”

Sebastian crosses his arms comfortably. “You can be the one to chase me if you like. You already know I can be accommodating.”

Jim scoffs. “With my bloody house,” he says shortly. “Speaking of which, maybe you should trot back home where you're safe. Some of us have work to do, and you're cramping my style.”

Sebastian takes half a step closer and lowers his tone. “If you're selling your arse, little thing, you don't have to leave home for that. You know where my bedroom is.”

“You couldn't afford my arse,” Jim responds acerbically, “and I'm selling DHT.”

Sebastian rolls his neck. “I've been out of the country for a few years so you're going to have to tell me what that is.”

“Drugs, Basher, I sell very specialist drugs, and these days dihydrotestosterone is where it's at,” Jim says dismissively. He eyes his three quiet companions and curls his lip. “At this rate I'm going to be in the market for new muscle as well. Time is money, you know.”

“What does it do?” Seb asks.

Jim waves a fine-boned hand dismissively. “They're calling it the alpha male drug now. It makes a man a man.”

“And you're the poster boy for a drug like that are you?” Sebastian questions.

“You'd be surprised,” Jim says crisply. He shows his teeth.

Sebastian considers. The little Irishman seems like a clever sort, but the house does not smell like a chemistry lab. He's not seen any evidence of one either. “Where's this DHT alpha drug coming from then?”

Jim tuts. “Oh, Moran, who cares? I know where it's going, and more importantly, people know they have to come to me to get it.”

Sebastian circles the smaller man slowly and enjoys it. “Why do they come to you? You're hardly the gym rat type.”

“They come to me, darling, because I sell a steady source of a scarce drug that every man wants. It burns fat, builds muscle, helps his libido and his erection quality, and it's good for his mood.”

“So what's the catch?” Seb asks.

“Nothing that bothers me,” Jim says dismissively.

“And yet you're not taking it,” Sebastian says.

Jim raises his brow. “Oh? I don't resemble what you think of as a manly enough man, is that it, Basher?”

Sebastian chuckles. “Relax, toots, I'll still call you Daddy if that's what gets your engine running, but let's be real here: you're not taking them.”

“And you don't think it takes a superb mood to tolerate your drivel?” Jim drawls.

Seb shrugs and takes a bigger step closer. He runs the back of his knuckles over Jim's warm shirt front. The brunet raises his hands defensively at the gesture but does not move away.

“How about you show me this improved sexual quality of your DHT then?” Sebastian suggests. “If you impress me, maybe I'll buy some.”

“You're not really my type,” Jim says quietly.

Sebastian tuts playfully. “Not much of a salesman being caught out on a lie straight away.”

Jim tilts up his chin. He's all angular features, as though his body decided his sharp teeth were such a hit that all of his body should be pointy enough to break skin. He doesn't look like he's on drugs, but he does look underweight. He's got the look of a young lad whose bones are just starting to broaden out under his skin into something approximating a proper man. The thinness is like that of a bloke who's just had a late growth spurt, but Jim looks sorely lacking for one of those. He's tiny and spikey and you could cut his soft belly as easily as a hedgehog's if you wore thick enough gloves when you were doing it.

“Go home, Sebastian Moran,” Jim says.

The blond has entirely stopped caring about their audience by now. “Or what, Teeth?” Sebastian asks. “You going to spank me and send me to my room?”


End file.
